I have the opportunity to use a .177 TX200 for FT which should give me better results vs my .22 HW97 - or so I thought.....

I have been shooting the TX for a few weekends but haven't been able to get it to group as well as the HW.

did some chronograph and multiple pellet testing today and found a large extreme spread and SD (20-28 and 6.0 -9.5 respectively) on the TX200. I have tested several H&N FTT with different skirt sizes, JSB Exact etc 8.44g to 8.64g - avg muzzle velocities are between 844 and 849fps - about 13.5 ft lbs

I estimate the gun has less than 1000 pellets through it. With more pellets through it, should it settle in or are there other areas to explore to get it shooting as good or better than my .22 HW?

When I first read your post, Brian, a lot of questions came to mind, some of which Tom touched on.

Was the gun stock or tuned? If tuned, with what kit and by what tuner?

Have you taken the gun apart to see if the spring is broken?

What scope is being used. Could the scope have been broken by the recoil?

The extreme spread, as Tom said, is too high. I agree that the first thing to do would be to take it apart and see if there is anything wrong with what is inside. A bad scope could influence accuracy for sure, but should not affect the spread.

Not shooting consistently over the centre of the chrony and at the same height can definitely have a huge effect on the spread numbers.

Thanks for the feedback. Group size is very inconsistent. At 30 yards, i will often have 3 inside 3/8" (touching) and then get two flyers. Other groups are 5/8" and look like a shotgun pattern. This is why I did the chronograph work.

It is a brand new gun, never been opened up. The scope is a Hawke Airmax 4-12x40mm and it performed well on my HW prior to installation on the TX.

I will open it up to see what it looks like inside and will re-run the chronograph test with careful consideration to consistent shot placement.

Yes, there is lots of free advice out there - but wanted to start my discussion here with the folks at FTCentral.

Since its brand new, I recommend that you open it up and see what's going on inside. There are the 'basics' to check: broken spring, too much lube, loose fitting spring guide and/or top hat. Piston seal and breach seals too.

I'd suggest cleaning the inside of the compression chamber, to ensure there's no lube in there, and to remove stuff that can cause dieseling. Clean all the existing lube from the spring too, pretty much clean everything away, then you can add a *small amount* of you're preferred lube to the spring and the piston seal. You don't need much!

The 'bigger' failures could be: a loose barrel, a compression chamber that's leaking (the front has become unscrewed) or a 'bad' barrel, or clipping of the pellet on the over barrel.

Also, don't forget to clean your barrel! It can be filthy from the factory.

If you're getting 3/8" groups with 3 pellets, then 2 fliers, my thought is that the barrel is good, and once we rule out mechanical issues, and get her tuned, that ES should be 10-15fps, perhaps a bit better.

I highly recommend installing a tune kit too, if you're going to the Nationals next weekend, you will be able to talk with a few TX shooters who can give you some advice. it's unfortunate that OEM internals can't compare to a tune kit, they really are that much better.

Even though you can shoot your HW really well, with springers, sometimes the fliers are due to 'operator error'

It can take *a lot* of time to learn how to shoot *that* springer. Each springer is unique, and can require a different way of shooting. The key at first is consistency, consistency and then a bit more consistency - in how you hold and shoot it. Try different ways, shooting 10 shots each way. You may find this TX a bit more hold sensitive than you HW, at least right now.